Pablo Menendez's MezclaOur Cat in Havana

St. Martin -- Earlier this month, Pablo Menendez's exceptional Yoruban
Afro-Cuban, funk, bebop fusion septet Mezcla ("mixture") went island-hopping
from Cuba to St. Martin to perform at the first edition of a hopefully annual
Gourmet Jazz Festival. St. Martin claims to be the "gastronomic capital of
the Caribbean." Carlos Santana has called Mezcla "the cleanest, freshest
water I have ever tasted." The esteemed Cuban pianist/bandleader Chucho
Valdes topped the bill.

When Menendez moved to Cuba from the San Francisco Bay area at the age of 14,
his father advised him to "remember that it's a third world island. The
people will resent you if you try to make them fit into your definition of
things. So just keep your mouth shut and try to figure out what makes them
tick." He followed the advice, "although," he says with a grin over a plate
of lean duck with chocolate sauce: "I obviously no longer keep my mouth
shut."

Menendez has been an American residing in Cuba for 36 years. With some
oversimplification, he compares his legal status to "a foreigner with a green
card in the U.S." He's talkative, ebullient, a born communicator with a wide
musical culture and his hot band works Havana clubs and tours Europe and the
U.S. regularly. Current members include the young Cuban lions saxophonist
Orlando Sanchez and trumpeter Mayquel Gonzalez. Mezcla's latest
album Akimba (Khaeon Records) has been nominated for a Grammy in the
Latin Jazz category.

Menendez arrived in Havana in 1966, a 14-year old accompanying his mother the
blues singer Barbara Dane on guitar. They had just worked at New York's Cafe
Au Go Go as part of a triple bill with the Paul Butterfield Blues Band and
the Chambers Brothers. Dane had recorded with Earl Hines, Memphis Slim and
others. One journalist called her "this white woman saving the blues."

Growing up in Oakland, Menendez was accustomed to houseguests such as
bluesmen Jesse Fuller, Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee and folk singer Pete
Seeger. "My mother was interested in other cultures and she booked several
concerts in Havana," Menendez says. "She was prime time news there. Everybody
in Cuba knew about her."

He enrolled in the Escuela National de Arte. Living in the dormitory, his
tuition, rent, medical care, laundry and so on were taken care of. He studied
music and learned Spanish well enough to acquire a Cuban accent. (His
grandfather was born in Spain.) By now, even his English is Cuban-accented.
One year later, at the age of 15, he married Andria Santana, a drama student,
now an internationally known Spanish-language actress; they are still
married. He has become "part of the local scenery."

The first time Menendez returned home in the late '60s, it was by merchant
steamer to Canada. At the time, you could only fly to the U.S. from Cuba via
Paris, Madrid, Prague or Moscow. Later, when it was for a while possible to
change planes in Kingston, Jamaica, he arrived at JFK to find a customs agent
who was, "rubbing his hands with glee. He called me over and said: 'You've
been to Jamaica?' I tried to explain that it was just in transit but he went
through my baggage looking for cannabis. When he finally realized that I was
actually coming from Havana, his wires got totally crossed -- it was
like a short circuit. He looked at my American passport and asked me: 'So
what have you got; rum and cigars?'

"People wonder why there is so much good Cuban music. Is it inbreeding or
something in the water or what? Mostly, it's a strong musical tradition
combined with good education. Musicians are a sort of elite in Cuba. We are
subsidized with a regular salary. It's ridiculously low if you think in
dollar terms, but we also get subsidized food, have no medical expenses and
our kids' education is free. This is augmented by our hard currency gigs,
which get tax breaks. My wife and I live in a nice subsidized house one block
from the beach in Miramar.
"Music is a major Cuban export and the government knows that now. I was in
Berlin when The Wall came down, I was in Nicaragua when the Sandistas were in
power, in L.A. when the National Guard was called up, my mother and I were
chased by Marcos's soldiers when we played for anti-war GIs in the
Philippines, and I was in Cuba while people were jumping on rafts.

"When I visit the States I see a lot of musicians who have almost the
identical skills as I do. They're bi-lingual, bi-cultural, they know salsa
music, play guitar, lead bands, produce. Seeing them I can get a concrete
picture of what my lifestyle would be if I ever moved back. They are under so
much more stress than I am. In New York, musicians have to work like 20 hours
a day to make a living; and they are forced to make an amazing amount of
compromises that in my life are just not necessary."

Mike Zwerin first published this piece in the International Herald
Tribune.

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